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Meltzer's Musings: Clutch Goaltending and the Flyers

May 21, 2011, 8:04 AM ET [ Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
San Jose Sharks goaltender Antti Niemi showed in last night's game why he has won six playoff series in his brief NHL career. Is he the best goaltender in the NHL? Far from it. However, he has an ability to make clutch saves -- often on very difficult chances -- at critical junctures of the game. He does things that can't be measured by goals against average or save percentage, and that's why statistics (especially for goaltenders) are not the be all and end all of a player's worth.

Last night, with the Sharks off to a 3-0 lead, there was a bad turnover in the San Jose zone in the waning seconds of the period. Niemi made the stop on a tough shot by Mason Raymond to hold the score right where it was. If Vancouver had scored there, the whole complexion of the game would likely have changed.

In the second period last night, San Jose faced a pair of lengthy 5-on-3 penalty kills in immediate succession. Niemi was his team's best penalty killer. Yes, he had help from his defense, but he also had to make a few big stops.

Even in the third period, as Vancouver scored early and then finally began to chip away at its deficit in the latter half of the period -- largely due to Jamie McGinn's boarding major -- Niemi never panicked. His final stat line of three goals against and 27 saves on 30 shots (.900) look so-so but the goaltender's play was just as important to his team's win last night as Patrick Marleau's two goals.

That was pretty much what Niemi did against the Flyers last year. He bent but didn't break. Yes, he got torched in the first 30 minutes of Game 1 of last year's Final, but he slammed the door when Chicago took a one-goal into the third period. In Game 2, Niemi was the biggest reason why Chicago was able to win 2-1 despite a third-period blitz by Philly that rivaled their dominant (but ultimately fruitless) third period against Boston in Game 2 this year. In Game 5, the Flyers made a couple of runs at getting back in the game but Niemi made some clutch saves and the Flyers goalies (Michael Leighton in the first period, Brian Boucher later on) did not.

I bring all this up in light of the never ending debate over the Flyers' goaltending. It's not the stats but the situational goaltending that matters. That is why John Vanbiesbrouck's name always gets thrown into the list of Philadelphia goalies who didn't get the job done in the postseason. Even though he allowed just nine goals in a six-game series against Toronto in 1999, two of the goals he gave up were short-side goals in games that were tied at the time, and ended up deciding the games. Statistically, Beezer was outstanding in that series. In the reality of the four times the Flyers lost, he needed to be just a little bit better when the games were on the line.

Goaltending is the toughest position on the ice. Every goalie has his fair share of shots he'd like to have back, but the best goaltenders have a knack for avoiding ill-timed soft goals that drain a team of its energy. Instead, the best goalies seem to come up with the types of saves at key moments of the game where he'd have been the last one to blame if the puck had gone in. He picks the club up when there are coverage breakdowns or turnovers in tied or one-goal games. He gives the club confidence that it can go to the attack without worrying that every time the puck goes over the defensive blueline, potential disaster lurks around the corner.

Paul Holmgren is fond of saying that goaltending is a reflection of team play. He's right. But it's a two-way street. Team play is also a reflection of goaltending.

The Flyers of the mid-1980s were a perfect case in point. Pelle Lindbergh and the rookie year version of Ron Hextall were the biggest reasons the club was not only dominant in the regular season -- and in Lindbergh's case, the goalie was playing behind the youngest team in the NHL at the time -- but also made it to the Stanley Cup Final.

In between Pelle's last full season and Hexy's first year, Bob Froese did a very admirable job of playing goal under brutally difficult circumstances following Lindbergh's death. But he was not the same caliber of goalie that his predecessor or successor were. Vanbiesbrouck, then with the Rangers, absolutely stole two games in New York's first-round series against Philly in 1986. Frosty did OK statistically but he let in ill-timed goals in three games that further drained a club that had already been through the wringer emotionally, mentally and physically all season. It was unfair to say the Flyers lost because of Froese, but the Rangers primarily won because of Beezer.

That's a goalie's conundrum. He's only human, and that's OK -- so long as he acts superhuman at certain critical times. That's what the Flyers have not truly had for years: a goaltender who consistently walks that tightrope in the playoffs.

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Teemu "Euroflyers" Hytönen blogged a < ahref="http://euroflyers.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-on-zherdev-incident.html">translation of an updated report on the Nikolay Zherdev, via Russian-language news channel Life News.

The report includes a description of what Zherdev's wife, Evgenia, told police about the incident near a Moscow restaurant.


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Coming tomorrow: A look at team toughness.
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